Investigating the Conversations that Occur During Undergraduate Research Experiences: A Case Study

Despite the increasing popularity of undergraduate research experiences across disciplines, little information currently exists to guide the design, evaluation, and improvement of these experiences. One challenge to generating such guidelines is the lack of evidence related to the processes and contexts in which undergraduate research experiences occur. My study sought to address this deficiency by exploring the norms of discourse that framed conversations between students and their mentors in biochemistry research as a model to understand the phenomenon of undergraduate research. I used a case-study approach to investigate the conversations that occurred between three student-mentor pairs as they engaged in research. Video-recorded observations of students and mentors working together helped me to identify discursive norms. I employed a stimulated recall interview protocol to identify how participants negotiated and established norms during a research experience. Analysis of discourse was informed by previous literature on undergraduate research experiences and conversation analysis theory. Viewing my analysis across cases allowed me to identify categories of conversations that framed the research experiences of student-mentor pairs. Based on these categories, I defined two distinct classes of research experiences present in my study: holistic and targeted experiences. I investigated individual turns-at-talk in conversations to generate findings on the nature of discourse present in each class of research experience. My work adds to current understandings of the processes by which undergraduate research experiences occur by providing details about the role discourse plays in shaping these experiences. The results from this work will be used to make recommendations for researchers involved in the investigation of undergraduate research as an educational practice and educators interested in improving the research experiences of their undergraduate students

Why Rural Matters 2023: Centering Equity and Opportuniy: A Discussion with the Research Team

Authors of the Why Rural Matters 2023 report discuss its development and key findings

Noxious and Selected Invasive Plant Populations along Illinois Toll Highway Rights-of-Way

• Repeated a 2010 survey for selected invasive species and listed noxious weeds throughout the ISTHA corridor. • Mapped 1345 populations of invasive species. • Found the ISTHA corridor to be heavily populated by invasive species throughout the length of each roadway. • Most frequently found species were Canada Thistle (Cirsium arvense) and Cut-leaf Teasel (Dipsacus laciniatus). • Recommend management specific to each of 8 species or groups of species found during the survey.Illinois State Toll Highway Authorityunpublishednot peer reviewedOpe

Interactive Visual Histories for Vector Graphics

Presentation and graphics software enables users to experiment with variations of illustrations. They can revisit recent editing operations using the ubiquitous undo command, but they are limited to sequential exploration. We propose a new interaction metaphor and visualization for operation history. While editing, a user can access a history mode in which actions are denoted by graphical depictions appearing on top of the document. Our work is inspired by the visual language of film storyboards and assembly instructions. Our storyboard provides an interactive visual history, summarizing the editing of a document or a selected object. Each view is composed of action depictions representing the userâ s editing actions and enables the user to consider the operation history in context rather than in a disconnected list view. This metaphor provides instant access to any past action and we demonstrate that this is an intuitive interface to a selective undo mechanism

Clinician identification of youth abusing over-the-counter products for weight control in a large U.S. integrated health system

Background: Abuse of over-the-counter (OTC) products, such as diet pills and laxatives, for weight control by adolescents is well-documented and can precipitate serious medical conditions. Yet only a small percentage of youth with disordered weight control behaviors receive treatment. The objective of this study was to examine how often clinicians communicate with youth with symptoms consistent with abuse of OTC products for weight control about possible use of these products. We used electronic medical records and administrative claims for services for 53,229 12 to 17 year old patients receiving care from an integrated health system in the U.S. Northwest from August 2007 to December 2010. We examined electronic text of clinical notes to identify encounters in which the clinician noted one of 10 metabolic conditions potentially associated with abuse of OTC products (diet pills, laxatives, diuretics, ipecac, orlistat, and alli®) for weight control and then assessed whether clinicians noted communication with adolescent patients about possible use of OTC products for weight control. Results: We identified 130 (0.2% of sample) patients with clinical notes indicating one or more of the metabolic conditions. In clinical notes for only four (3.1%) of these patients did clinicians document suspicion or communication about possible abuse of the OTC products. All four had a previous eating disorder diagnosis. In the 12 months subsequent to the clinical encounter in which a metabolic disturbance was identified, medical notes for only three (2.3%) of the 130 patients indicated clinician suspicion or communication about possible abuse of these products or an eating disorder. Conclusions: Clinicians are missing a critical window of opportunity to query adolescents when presenting with suspicious metabolic disturbances about possible abuse of OTC products for weight control. Clinicians may need more training to detect OTC product abuse, and electronic medical records should prompt more thorough enquiry

Comparison of Extraintestinal Pathogenic Escherichia coli Strains from Human and Avian Sources Reveals a Mixed Subset Representing Potential Zoonotic Pathogens

Since extraintestinal pathogenic Escherichia coli (ExPEC) strains from human and avian hosts encounter similar challenges in establishing infection in extraintestinal locations, they may share similar contents of virulence genes and capacities to cause disease. In the present study, 1,074 ExPEC isolates were classified by phylogenetic group and possession of 67 other traits, including virulence-associated genes and plasmid replicon types. These ExPEC isolates included 452 avian pathogenic E. coli strains from avian colibacillosis, 91 neonatal meningitis E. coli (NMEC) strains causing human neonatal meningitis, and 531 uropathogenic E. coli strains from human urinary tract infections. Cluster analysis of the data revealed that most members of each subpathotype represent a genetically distinct group and have distinguishing characteristics. However, a genotyping cluster containing 108 ExPEC isolates was identified, heavily mixed with regard to subpathotype, in which there was substantial trait overlap. Many of the isolates within this cluster belonged to the O1, O2, or O18 serogroup. Also, 58% belonged to the ST95 multilocus sequence typing group, and over 90% of them were assigned to the B2 phylogenetic group typical of human ExPEC strains. This cluster contained strains with a high number of both chromosome- and plasmid-associated ExPEC genes. Further characterization of this ExPEC subset with zoonotic potential urges future studies exploring the potential for the transmission of certain ExPEC strains between humans and animals. Also, the widespread occurrence of plasmids among NMEC strains and members of the mixed cluster suggests that plasmid-mediated virulence in these pathotypes warrants further attention

Combinatorial signal processing in an insect

Human language is combinatorial: phonemes are grouped into syllables, syllables are grouped into words, and so on. The capacity for combinatorial processing is present, in different degrees, in some mammals and birds. We used vibrational insects, Enchenopa treehoppers, to test the hypothesis of basic combinatorial processing against two competing hypotheses: beginning rule (where the early signal portions play a stronger role in acceptability) and no ordering rule (where the order of signal elements plays no role in signal acceptability). Enchenopa males use plant-borne vibrational signals that consist of a whine followed by pulses. We tested the above hypotheses with vibrational playback experiments in which we presented Enchenopa females with stimuli varying in signal element combinations. We monitored female responses to these playbacks with laser vibrometry. We found strong support for combinatorial processing in Enchenopa: in brief, females preferred natural-combination signals regardless of the beginning element and discriminated against reverse-order signals or individual elements. Finding support for the combinatorial rule hypothesis in insects suggests that this capability represents a common solution to the problems presented by complex communication.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

A Search For Organic Molecules in Intermediate Redshift DLAs

There has been a renewed interest in searching for diffuse interstellar bands (DIBs) due to their probable connection to organic molecules and, thus, their possible link to life in the Universe. Our group is undertaking an extensive search for DIBs in DLAs via QSO absorption-line systems. Six of our DLA targets are presented here. Our equivalent width (EW) limits for the 5780 DIB line strongly suggests that DIB abundance is below the Milky Way expected value or that metallicity plays a large role in DIB strengths.Comment: 3 pages; 2 figures; presented at IAU 199; Probing Galaxies through Quasar Absorption Line